Editing City Series:Volume5a Chapter11 (section)

===Rosetta’s Journal===

<poem>
  Lady Beretta taught me another writing tool today. I’m using it right now. It is called indentation. And according to her…

  “Move the first letter over a bit every time you start on a new idea.”

  “You can also do it when starting a quote.”

  The former makes it easier to pick up on the text’s meaning and the latter makes the text easier to read.

  But I am kind of worried about this new technique.

  Starting my writing by including a blank space is a difficult thing to do. When every line starts right at the edge it is easy to know where to start. And I have difficulty knowing when I am starting on a new idea.

  While writing this I feel like I am talking and can go for line after line. I can think of it as similar to the part of a conversation where the other person would speak or I would take a breath.

  I think this is a difficult writing technique. I now have to check the text purely as a written work because indentation does not exist in conversation.

  It is difficult, but I kind of understand. Conversation has techniques not found in writing. You can gesture or use facial expressions.

  I will think of this as something similar. I hope I will be able to use indentation as naturally as I do gestures in conversation.

  I still find many strange things while reading the letters and picture books Lady Beretta gives me. But I am gradually solving those mysteries and I plan to start using those things.

  Now I will begin on today’s journal entry.

  A lot happened today as well.

  I tripped on the stairs while cleaning this morning. I lost my balance while polishing the railing.

  I fell down about 7 steps – I was lucky I was not higher up – and ended up lying on the floor at the bottom. When I got up my right leg and left arm were damaged.

  But they were damaged in different ways. The right leg had come off at the crotch and shattered. But the left arm had not come of and simply hurt. What does that mean? Before I could answer that question I was picked up by the master who had heard the noise and rushed down the stairs.

  He took me to the storeroom and started to attach a replacement leg.

  When he tried to remove my clothing I refused and insisted on doing the work myself. He seemed confused by this.

  “Are you embarrassed? Then I’ll leave this to you.”

  Only then did I realize what I had done. When I was not in a hurry or when he carried me to the storeroom like this I had always let him replace my parts.

  This would have been the same.

  So why did I refuse it?

  Was I embarrassed?

  I did not really understand, but he turned his back and sat on a wooden box in the storeroom.

  “Tell me if you need any help.”

  What did this mean?

  I realized I would never again receive his kindness like that.

  I had likely crossed a line in the moment I had refused. I had refused to let everything remain the same from now on.

  I had lost a connection to my master. So he might bring me there in the future. But he will not replace the part himself.

  I found there was nothing I could say.

  I searched the storeroom for a replacement right leg and asked him a question.

  “What is this emotion I am feeling? Do you know, master?”

  “Do you not know the word for it?”

  “I think it is most like sorrow. But it does not appear on the surface. It simply permeates me from within.”

  “I see.”

  “Will you tell me what it is?”

  “No I won’t. Silly girl.”

  “Why not?”

  His answer to my question was simple.

  “If I told you you would Signe that emotion.”

  Hearing that caused me to cry. I do not know why. It was the first time I cried in front of him. It was embarrassing. While I held the spare leg and hid my tears with a hand my master walked over. He rubbed my head.

  “You’re becoming more and more your own person.”

  I tearfully held out the spare leg and he took it.

  “This is the last time. Okay?”

  Then he got to work replacing my leg. I let him take care of everything while I cried. He removed my skirt and blouse and he looked at my hurting left shoulder.

  Then he noticed that I was gaining a human arm. The shoulder was no longer as hard and cold as porcelain. It was a bit springy but it had the softness and warmth of human skin. At some point the joint had turned into lines and bulges. And the joint’s black intermediary parts now looked like a band of moles.

  The hurting part had become a blue bruise. That meant my arm was becoming human thanks to the Coppelia Effect. He checked my right shoulder and it was the same. When getting dressed this morning I had thought the support cloth that hides the joint was attached oddly well. I guessed that those machine parts had already changed into what they would look like if I were human. My fingernails felt like they were actually attached instead of embedded in my fingers. The joints seemed to move with almost no resistance. The Coppelia Effect had to be working inside me. The outside had changed in the short time between last night and today. The fingertips are still not complete. But I am sure they too will become human eventually.

  How long has it been since I replaced my arms with ones modeled after a human’s? I am growing more human just like Lady Beretta said I would. I must have needed better arms to write and to cook for Lady Beretta and the others.

  “The bulges from the joint parts and the black marks from the intermediary parts will eventually go away.”

  My master said that and then began replacing my leg.

  And I asked him for something.

  “Please carry me out of the storeroom. Walking with a new leg is not easy.”

  “That’s the first time you’ve asked to be spoiled.”

  Is that what it means to be spoiled?

  He carried me out into the hallway and to the bottom of the stairs I had fallen down. He did not have to carry me that far but I let him spoil me. Because I knew this would be the last time.

  Then I spent time making lunch – recently the Fantasmé Renard children will come in through the back entrance and play when I am in the kitchen. After a while, I heard the parent’s cry and they left.

  I realized one other strange thing today. I noticed it while making sure the second story windows were locked. There is apparently a half-room space between the study and the library.

  I asked my master about it.

  “Yes. There apparently used to be a torture room there where people were forced to talk. That was my grandfather’s horrific hobby so I had it filled in with cement.”

  I see. The torture room was directly above the first floor study. That means I have been writing my journal below a torture room all this time. I managed to solve that mystery almost immediately.

  A lot happened today. But it was fun.

  Writing my journal is my job. Fun things are not a job. But I am beginning to think that the job of writing my journal may be fun.
</poem>

<noinclude>
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.2em; border-collapse: collapse;"
|-
| Back to [[City_Series:Volume5a_Chapter10|Chapter 10]]
| Return to [[City_Series|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[City_Series:Volume5a_Chapter12|Chapter 12]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>